War

Thousand one hundred and seventy -third day. Putin suggested renewing direct negotiations with Ukraine. Kyiv and its allies demand from the Russian Federation first agree to a ceasefire

Medusa from February 24, 2022 lives on the Russian-Ukrainian war on the air. In our daily materials, we publish your letters, because we are sure: we must continue to talk about the war. What feelings do you experience because of the ongoing war? How does it affect you personally right now? How has your attitude to what is happening, towards Russia, Ukraine, to the world changed over these three years of the war? Look for a feedback form at the end of this article. The review of the previous day can be read here .

World

Russian President Vladimir Putin on the night of May 11 invited Ukraine to resume direct negotiations “interrupted in 2022” - from May 15 in Istanbul without preliminary conditions. According to Putin, a dialogue is needed in order to "eliminate the root causes of the conflict, to establish a long -term, strong world for a historical perspective." “We do not exclude that in the course of these negotiations it will be possible to agree on some new truces, a new ceasefire, and about a real truce,” he said.

Putin made a statement a few hours after the Ukrainian authorities proposed “a complete and unconditional ceasefire on land, in the air and at the sea for at least 30 days”, starting from Monday, May 12. They agreed on such an initiative during a visit to Kiev on May 10, Emmanuel Macron, Donald Tusk, Kira Starmer and Friedrich Merets.

In his speech, Putin did not mention the ceasefire for 30 days. After Putin, the President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky said that Russia should agree to a truce - and only after that “Ukraine is ready to meet”. Zelensky also did not directly directly comment on the negotiations. The head of the Office of the President of Ukraine Andrei Ermak, in turn, said that "first the ceasefire is 30 days, then everything else."

US President Donald Trump published a post on social networks, in which he announced the “potentially great day” for Russia and Ukraine, and also said that “an important week ahead”. What Trump was talking about-about a 30-day truce or about Putin’s proposal to conduct direct negotiations-it is incomprehensible. The special support of the American president in Russia and Ukraine Keith Kellogo on the social network X supported the proposal of Ukraine and European countries about the preliminary ceasefire.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in a telephone conversation with Putin (the President of the Russian Federation announced this conversation in his speech) that his country is ready to accept negotiations. At the same time, the Turkish media reported , Erdogan emphasized that "a comprehensive ceasefire will create the necessary environment for peace negotiations."

European allies of Ukraine expressed more specifically, saying that Russia should first agree to a 30-day truce. So, French President Emmanuel Macron emphasized that "there can be no negotiations while he says weapons."

Ukraine

The “three -day truce” in honor of the Victory Day declared Vladimir Putin, on the night of May 11 stopped acting. Putin said that at the time of the armistice, Russia will stop all the fighting, but this did not happen. However, the massive strikes by the drones, judging by the data of the Air Force of the Armed Forces of the Armed Forces, there were no three days through the territory of Ukraine. On the night of May 11, drones resumed. The Ukrainian military reported that the Russian troops attacked Ukraine with 108 drum drones of the Shakud type and the engine drones. 60 shock drones managed to knock down, 41 drone-miter was "locally lost without negative consequences."

Russian drones, among other things, attacked Kiev and the Kiev region, where one person suffered and five private houses were damaged. The mayor of Kiev Vitaly Klitschko reported that the air defense forces worked in the capital of Ukraine in the early morning of May 11.

Over the past few months, Russian troops have repeatedly attacked Kyiv with drones and missiles. As a result of these blows, 13 people died, according to May 11. Medusa collected photographs from the capital of Ukraine showing both the consequences of Russian blows and their everyday life continuing against the background.

War through the eyes of readers "Medusa"

Alexander (Estonia). [...] After the start of a full-scale war with Ukraine, when on May 9 I receive a congratulatory message from my mother or I see the posts of some relatives in social networks (with portraits of grandfathers and stories of their military-veteran life path), I do not know how to react.

On the one hand, it is true that Putin’s authoritarianism and propaganda did on May 9 in Russia what is called “victory”-reaching the complete absurdity of aggressive-forces [...] and, the most vile, by the proclamation of the current, the currently aggressive war, with the essentially defensive and forced. This is the complete opposite and mockery of the main and initial content of the Victory Feast - it is about the fundamental value and fragility of the world, about the memory of the victims of those who cultivated the hatred, war and ideas of the national, racial superiority over others. It is very similar to fascism.

On the other hand, I really do not like the trend of recent years (very noticeable in the policy and public discourse of the Baltic countries), to fully depreciate the Victory Day, the official declaration of its criminal “propaganda of military aggression and occupation”, denial of the positive role of the Soviet Union and its peoples in the defeat of those forces that were terrified, mass destruction, death and huge destruction to most of Europe, and even part Africa. Sorry, but the fact that the totalitarian and, of course, the criminal, unjust and ruthless imperialist regime of the Stalinist USSR brought the suffering and occupation to the countries of Eastern Europe, in no way cancel the huge contribution that Soviet society has made to resist Nazism and fascism in Europe and in its defeat - with unimaginable victims, in the union and coordination and coordination. With the largest democracies in the world.

The Stalin regime of the USSR, being totalitarian, was not accountable to the company - and the ordinary Red Army soldier is not responsible for the decision of the dictator and the Central Committee to annex and occupy the Baltic countries. Moreover, the peoples of the USSR became one of the most severe victims of Nazi military aggression and crimes, they defended their right to life, literally their families and houses. Did the troops (both ordinary soldiers and leadership) of the anti -Hitler coalition, including the USSR, committed war crimes against civilians during that war? Yes, and systematically. Should this be understood and should the perpetrators be responsible? Yes, they must. But did they stop the inconceivable until then, incomparable, incomparable evil, systematically, massively and severely destroyed entire nations and social groups of people in the name of insane ideas? Yes, too. [...] Attempts of artificial simplification, coloring in black and white bring only even more suffering and harm. For millions of inhabitants of Europe and tens of thousands of prisoners of death camps, soldiers of the Red Army were a liberator, not an invader (in any case not only by an invader), and this is difficult to deny.

The new meaning of [Victory Day] should be as close as possible to the common for all of Europe and the old, initial: memory and sorrow about tens of millions of innocently killed victims, the joy of restoring the world and gratitude to those who brought it closer, the hope of normalizing life and restoring, the inadmissibility of the dissipation of war - and not the militarism of military parades [...].

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